Flights of Fancy
by Illoria
Summary: Elizabeth spent her childhood fantasizing about her perfect hero. Now that she isn't a little girl anymore, her fantasies have come true... only making her realize they aren't what she really wants after all. - CHAPTER 7 UP 910 :).
1. Princes and Pirates

Flights of Fancy 

By Illoria

**Disclaimer:** They are owned by the mouse, and I… I am not the mouse!

**A/N:** 'Ello everyone. :) I shall introduce this story by saying thank you for reading this because that means you're about to read the story. :P heh. Well anyway… I am not really sure how long I intend this fic to be, but it'll be a pretty good sized one, I think. Ummm, anything else, anything else…? I don't think so. :) Well, proceed!

Chapter One: Princes and Pirates 

            Elizabeth remembered being a small girl, no older than seven, and wishing she were a part of the fairytales her governess would read to her at night. She fancied that she would be captured by a villain, a horrible villain; that she would fight and fight but to no avail until finally, a prince would come and rescue her, defeating the villain and telling her how brave she had been for enduring her capture. Then of course, she and the prince would confess their love for each other as they rode away on a white horse.

            When she got a little older, that fantasy wasn't enough anymore. The scenario stayed the same for the most part, but it was added to. She wondered where she and her true love would ride away to after her rescue. To come up with an answer to this pressing question, she changed the galloping white horse to billowing white sails on her hero's ship.

            As young Elizabeth grew, she would hear more and more of her father talking about the colonies in the Caribbean. Mostly she was bored by the news her father discussed at the dinner table, but sometimes he would say things that piqued her interest. He would talk disdainfully about the pirate threat in the Caribbean, about lawless men sailing into the British colonies, plundering until there was nothing left of some towns. Her eyes would go wide with fascination and she would ask her father to tell her more stories of pirates, but he would scoff and ask Elizabeth why on earth would she want to know about a thing like that.

            By the time Elizabeth was ten, she had found out that her father was not willing to tell her any pirate stories and the governess knew none to tell. So, in the absence of pirate stories, Elizabeth made up her own. About rogue captains and miscreant crews and their adventures all over the Seven Seas. It would be a grand and fanciful adventure, she was certain, to be a pirate. It would be like that tingling feeling she got the time she stole a shilling left unattended at a market stall, that pride and relief that came with getting away with something, but multiplied an innumerable amount of times.

            The thing that made her more excited than she was sure anything else could at the time was when her father would receive letters from the colonies in the Caribbean. After he was done with them, she would sneak into his room and read them as eagerly as she had listened to fantasy stories as a smaller girl. The news of pirates had by now replaced all those stories, and the ships of her imagination had by now hoisted the Jolly Roger up high.

            The letters were few and far between, but they were worth the wait in Elizabeth's opinion. In long script the governors of the colonies told of the pirate threats, describing the latest raids and other illegal deeds committed by the pirates. She got to knowing these pirates by name, eventually, and when her father let her go out by herself to buy something at the market she stopped by the docks and asked any sailor she saw about her favorite pirates. Mostly they regarded her as a silly child, but they told her their stories anyway and she listened eagerly, committing the stories to memory and telling them over and over to herself. 

Eventually she even learned a pirate's sea chantey, which she sung to herself at night when her father was asleep, which she hummed to herself while walking down the streets to church. An exciting thing about this was that her father was completely oblivious to the fact that what she was humming was a _pirate _song. Again, that tremor of getting away with something.

Then, when Elizabeth was twelve, one of her fantasies finally came true. Her father was to be the governor of Port Royal, Jamaica. She thought she could've exploded from the excitement – they were moving to a place where pirates were a regular occurrence!  They were moving to the Caribbean – she would finally get to go to the place she had visited so often in the stories she made up.

On the crossing, she kept a sharp eye out for any suspicious passing ships. She sang "A Pirate's Life for Me" while standing at the bow, hoping that somehow the song would make a pirate ship gravitate toward her ship, the pirate ship of her fancies with its adventurous crew and daring captain. The wistful half of her waited in anticipation for the ship to come, while the other half of her stood disappointed, wondering if maybe such a pirate ship didn't exist after all. But she wouldn't allow these disappointed notions to creep into her head, and she stuck to her own stories.

Which is why when she saw the boy in the water, her heart was pounding. When they took him aboard and told her to watch him, the anxiety was bubbling up inside of her and she felt like the anticipation of his awakening might be too much for her to take. When she found the medallion around his neck an enormous exclamation went off inside of her and she felt like jumping for joy at the story that was unfolding in her head to explain the boy's piratical origins.

Eight years had passed since the crossing from England. Even more years had passed since Elizabeth had first defined all of her fancies, from the white horse to the white sails to the Jolly Roger. She had grown up, but the fantasies had not disappeared because of it. Inside she still had those stories, every last one of them. They were the fancies of a silly girl. They were the solemn wishes of a girl who wanted more than what she saw.

The fantasies she created were an escape from the world around her. An escape from evening gowns and bonnets, corset strings and carriages, dinner parties where everyone sat too straight and talked too formally to be genuine. She kept Will's pirate medallion in her drawer as a wistful sort of prodding that her fantasies were more than just fantasies after all.

Oh, and she now had the proof she had always wanted, ever since she was a little girl. She now had proof that fantasies _were_ more than just fantasies, that every last fancy she had created had come true in the sense she had wanted them to. She had told Barbossa that she didn't believe in ghost stories. But a little part of her had been nudging her at that moment, reminding her of how thrilled she really was at the prospect of a ghost story. She had told Barbossa that she didn't believe, and she didn't. But she had been hoping that something would happen to make her believe.

  
            It had.

She had been kidnapped by pirates, but not only that. That was only scraping the surface. What had happened had exceeded all of her fantasies, had dove down further and beyond her wildest stories. Curses were real, cursed gold existed, cursed pirates _existed_.

But they weren't the only pirates that existed. Captain Jack Sparrow existed. He had always been one of her favorite pirates, simply because his stories _were _the best, the most extravagant, the most adventurous. She had put him up on a pedestal, and to actually meet him was like a daze.

It was sort of like one of her earliest memories. Her father had bought her a doll, a beautiful doll, but she had never been able to see it up close because he put the doll high up on a shelf. She would stand down below and stare up at it, marveling at the shining hair and smooth porcelain face with perfect features, marveling at how real the little pretend person looked.

Who would've thought that Elizabeth would fall into the ocean and wake up to find that she had been rescued by none other than Jack Sparrow himself? She had thought for a moment that she was still unconscious and slipping back into a girlhood pirate fantasy. But after that, things moved too fast to be a fantasy, and she knew that she was definitely not dreaming when he had his irons around her neck and his pistol at her head. _That_ had certainly never been a part of her stories.

Alone on an island with Jack Sparrow and rum. That was another thing she would've never predicted. But there was the one thing, the ultimate thing to shatter her fantasies. There was no daring escape from the island for Jack Sparrow, there was no adventurous endeavor. There was just… a lot of rum.

It was like when she was seven and her father took that beautiful doll from the shelf and put her in Elizabeth's arms, and Elizabeth had noticed that the doll wasn't so perfect and unattainable, that the doll was just a regular doll, nothing special there. The porcelain even had a small chip in it.

  
            It was the same feeling of desperate disappointment. Seven-year-old Elizabeth had examined the doll over and over again to try and find that magical quality the doll had lost upon coming down from the shelf. Grown-up Elizabeth had examined Jack Sparrow over and over in her mind to try and find that magical quality the stories about him had always carried for her. It was how she felt so stupid for having put him up on her pedestal, how she felt so stupid for never having realized that he _was _real.

And now, now that it was all over? Now that she had been rescued by her hero and the villain had been defeated? Now that she and her rescuer had fallen in love? What would come next? Well, they would gallop away together on a white horse, down to the docks to sail away together on a ship with billowing white sails.

But something was nagging at her. An anxiety was forming in the pit of her stomach and creeping through the rest of her. Something was wrong, something was missing. But what was it? She had been kidnapped by the villain. She had fought but to no avail. She had been rescued. Was it that Will was not a prince, but a blacksmith? No. She didn't particularly care about the prince part anymore. The only part remaining was that she and rescuer had fallen in love. That had happened, too.

…Or had it?

As this thought crept into her mind, she got angry with herself. Of course that part had happened! _I love Will_, she told herself, a little more firmly than she should've needed to. And that firmness was what made her search as he kissed her, search for that something she had always thought would be in a kiss, that something that had always been in her fantasies. She couldn't find it, and that scared her.

That night she laid awake, back in her room at her father's mansion, and somehow the whole adventure seemed but another fantasy. But she made it so that it was still real, replaying the details over and over to make it stay real, vowing never to let it drop back into a fantasy. Because she felt like it was something she could hold onto.

Then it washed over her, slowly like the peaceful waves that rocked the ships she had imagined sailing on all her life. Slowly, slowly, until she was covered in it. Will was the hero that had rescued her from Barbossa, but was Barbossa really her villain? …A memory of her own voice rose up inside of her: _"Do you really intend to kill my rescuer?" _

Yes, Will had rescued her from Barbossa. But he wouldn't have been able to if Jack hadn't rescued her from drowning. A memory of sputtering into consciousness as she felt her corset being ripped off. Gratitude more than anyone could ever understand.

A memory of spinning around a fire, singing the song she had longed to sing at the top of her lungs but had never been able to all her life. The voice joining hers, that of a pirate, and a pirate captain no less. That moment had been perfect in a way, a perfect fantasy that was enough to piece back together those that had been shattered earlier that same day. A pirate song and a toast to freedom.

Elizabeth lay awake in her father's mansion. She could still feel the night breeze on that island and the rum burning down her throat. She could still feel Jack Sparrow's arm around her.

  
            She squeezed her eyes shut. This wasn't happening. _She loved Will._ Then why did she fancy Jack more of the rescuer she had always dreamed about?

            Will had saved her from Barbossa. _But Barbossa wasn't really her villain._ He was technically the villain, but he wasn't what she had always feared.

            Jack had saved her from her corset. A corset was something that every high-society lady wore beneath their billowing dresses, and it even stood as a sort of status symbol. She couldn't breathe in that corset, and Jack had ripped it off of her. She couldn't breathe in that high society, and Jack could rip her out of it.

            She knew now what her villain was. Not a person, but a life. Her villain was, and had been since she was a child, the life she was born into, among nobles, among upstanding gentlemen and fine ladies. She wanted to get away. Oh, desperately she wanted to get away.

            She had always thought that her escape was the dashing hero on the white horse and the ship with the billowing white sails. But no, no, that wasn't what she really wanted.

            She inhaled sharply as she realized.

She wanted black sails.

Black sails and a bottle of rum. She felt guilty as it washed over her that all she really wanted was Jack Sparrow. Oh, it was all mixed up, it was all jumbled, it was all wrong...

But yet… ever since she had been a little girl with fancies of pirates dancing through her head… there had always been that tingling feeling of getting away with something that was wrong.


	2. Dreams and Flight

Flights of Fancy 

By Illoria

**A/N:** Ok, so this is _not _a one-shot anymore. :) Wow, you guys sure can be persuasive, hehe. So I will be continuing this story! =) Thank you for the great feedback on this story though, I really appreciate it tons and tons. =)  
  
**Chapter Two: Dreams and Flight**

Upstairs in her room, the restlessness had built up inside Elizabeth until she couldn't take staying still anymore; she had gotten up and opened her window and received an invitation in the form of the night's breeze carrying a salty mist from the sea. She needed to go somewhere where she could breathe. And that was precisely why she was creeping out of her father's mansion in the middle of the night wearing nothing but a shift.

She closed the front door gently behind her, tearing her hands away from the door handles; her hands were shaking and the door handles were rattling. She took a deep breath of the refreshing salty air as she turned, but it didn't do much to calm her.

No sensation or thought did much to calm her until she arrived at the fort. She snuck past the negligent night guard and made her way to the cliffs, past the gallows, their eeriness decreased by the absence of the noose. 

It was the cruelest thing she had ever known, a hanging. Supposedly the one – the pirate, most likely – being hanged was the cruel one; but Elizabeth saw otherwise in the spectators' anxious faces. It was horrifying, really, the crowds that flocked to a hanging – she knew not whether they were attracted by morbid fascination or a sick desire to see the dreads of society "get theirs". Whatever the reason, it was more cruel a thing than most anything she had ever known a pirate to do.

Elizabeth felt sick herself as she noted that to any observer, she would've seemed just another one of those spectators that day. Just standing there all dressed up in her corset and her frilly dress and her bonnet, fanning herself beside her respectful father and equally respectful fiancé…

She felt dizzy and she had to sit down right there in the middle of the yard, scraping her hands on the stone. She felt lost, all alone in the empty yard with clear views on both sides of her – to the right, the gallows. To the left, the sea. She was turned to the right and her eyes were gravitating toward the gallows.

Jack was up there, his hands bound, his head bowed slightly as the drums sounded. Her heart was beating louder than the hard drumming punctuating the air, and the noose slipped over his head.

"This is wrong…" 

A drop, and her breath stopped, but no one knew because all she did was stand there just as helpless as Jack, but she had reason to be guilty because her helplessness could've been changed…

And Will. Oh, Will, thank God. If it hadn't been for Will…

  
Elizabeth shook her head. No, no, no, no, no. This was too much. She couldn't take it.

"I'm sorry, Jack." Her voice rang through the empty yard, past the gallows, and she hoped it would ring out into the sea so he could hear her. But still she knew she couldn't say in words how sorry she was for standing there watching.

But what was done was done, wasn't it? She couldn't go back and save him like she wished she had tried to. It was in the past and she couldn't redo it even if she tried.

_"They done what's right by them. That's all that matters."_

It was also comforting to her that Jack would most likely dismiss any of her apologies with a wave of his hand and say that what was done was done and have some rum Miss Swann.

"How many times must I ask you to call me Elizabeth?"  
"At least once more, Miss Swann. As always."

"Elizabeth – it is Elizabeth, isn't it?"  
"It's Miss Swann."

            Somehow tears had made their way to her eyes. She turned quickly from the gallows, a sort of relief washing over her as she looked instead toward the sea. Infinite and mysterious and magical were the words that came to mind, though words couldn't do much to describe the sea, really.

            Elizabeth smiled as Jack's mistress reassured her. It was kind of funny, really. His Mistress Sea had orchestrated everything. Elizabeth had fallen into her embrace and Mistress had handed her over to Jack, whom she knew so well; Mistress had carried the Pearl away and sped the Interceptor away chasing her. Mistress Sea had lapped up onto the island to check up and see if Jack had yet betrayed her, whispering thanks to Elizabeth as she pushed him away.

            As Elizabeth stood on the cliffs, the fort and the gallows behind her, the sea in front, everything was blurred and confusing except one thing. That night on the island with Jack was the only thing that was clear to her, because that night she knew that she had been truly free. And she wanted it back.

            She was quite certain that she would do a lot of things to get that night back. In this sense she was as greedy as any pirate, really.

            But what in the world was she going to do about it? Morning would come eventually and she would have to do something; whether or not it was something about this situation or not, it would have to be something – be it having breakfast or getting dressed or getting married, it would be something and that was making her feel hopeless.

            Because she didn't want to go back.

            Of course, things wouldn't be quite the same. She had Will now. Will… She felt sad for him because he loved her so much that he would die for her, and here she was, not loving him. And she could pretend to love him, but that would only be even more sad a thing because everything would be a lie. And eventually, or sooner than one might think, he would be able to tell in her kisses that she was lying and then he would be guilty and disappointed, and she cared for him enough not to want that for him.

            Or was her care just her excuse not to love him?

            Well, either way – whether she was caring or selfish – she didn't love Will. She loved that he had saved Jack's life, but what did that tell her? 

            The wind was picking up strength, Elizabeth noticed. She heard the gallows, creaking from behind her, and the waves, stronger against the cliffs.

            Oh, of course she was paying such attention to the wind to distract herself and put off the conclusion that was inching its way up inside of her. If she were to be completely honest with herself, which she had never really been before, she would admit that she wanted Jack to hand her a bottle of rum and sing and sing and sing with her and put his arms around her and pull her close and…

            But what was it worth your whole life being ashamed of what you wanted, really? And what she wanted wasn't a bad thing. Jack was a pirate and an excellent one at that, but that didn't mean… She couldn't explain it. Just something in the memory of his arm draped across her shoulder was telling her that he was an interesting pirate because he loved.

            Oh, and she could see it. He was in love with life, more than anyone, it was in the crazy way he danced around the fire, in the loud voice he used to sing, in the way he drank a bottle of rum, in his entire being when he spoke of freedom and swayed like the sea.

            "Wherever we want to go, we'll go. That's what a ship is, you know. It's not just a keel and a hull and deck and sails – that's what a ship needs. But what a ship is… what the Black Pearl really is… is freedom."

            Was that an invitation, perhaps? Wherever we want to go, we'll go. The whole thing made her feel content and full and excited and alive. That was what she wanted to feel. She wanted to be alive like he was.

            There was an energy inside of her now and it was coursing through her and breaking over her and instinct told her to be guilty but something else was telling her to be to be excited because she didn't need to be guilty – and she didn't need to let go. She could very well be as greedy as she could and hold on and hold on and hold on to what she wanted. It was a sudden realization. She didn't need to be caged!

            It was as if something brilliant had exploded inside of her, and she got up and started singing and twirling around in the yard until she was dizzy because she could. She didn't need to do anything and she didn't need to resign herself to anything and she didn't need to make sacrifices and trap herself; she really could be free! Because freedom really was more than a fantasy.

            Because Jack Sparrow was more than a fantasy and she had fallen more in love with him than she ever thought she could've loved anyone. And that made her come alive.

**  
  
            Come morning and there was only one ship leaving port.

            Standing on the docks, Will saw in a spyglass the merchant ship sailing away with her sailors on board, but it wasn't them that he was thinking about. It was Elizabeth, because she too was on board the ship. She had trusted him enough to let him know. And she should've… After all their history, she most definitely should've been able to trust him.

            But he had also thought that after all their history, she should've been able to love him. And just that morning she had shown up at his door wearing nothing but a shift, and the rising sun had illuminated the highlights in her long hair and the sparks from the stove in the smithy had caught the lights in her eyes, and just as his heart had started flying she had told him she didn't love him after all.

            Will lowered the spyglass.

            This wasn't right. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. Ever since he had first seen Elizabeth when they were children, he had loved her. He felt now like he had been dreaming all those years and as soon as the dream had been getting to the best part, he had been jarred awake and everything had been taken away.

            Oh, she was his everything. He had always known that he would do anything for her. He hadn't known, however, that doing anything for her included letting her go.

            The spyglass clattered to the dock.

            He was remembering all the times he had waited outside her window as a boy, waiting for her to open the window and wave down to him and just that would be enough to make him grin for the rest of the day. He remembered how her father had caught him and said shouldn't he be at the smithy? And he had never come back to her window after that.

He was remembering when he would sit on the decks or stand at the bow with her on the way to Port Royal. When they'd arrived, he'd gone with her to her new house, and her father the governor had agreed at her persuasion to let him stay there until he found another place to go.

So he'd stayed.

If she and her father weren't going out, she would come to get him and they would go outside and run through the gardens and make up games to play, or they would sneak into the gardener's shed and talk about everything.

He'd stayed at her father's mansion until he was able to get an apprenticeship at the smithy. He didn't see her very much after that, but he was always trying to think of excuses to see her, or jumping at the chance to run errands around town on the off chance that he would run into her. But these occasions were rare, and their meetings were brief. In the absence of being with her, he would recall and go over all the conversations they'd had, or he would think of a new game she might like, and he would picture her lovely sparkling eyes.

She had always been a dream to him.

…Now what?

The tears subsided as the anger swept in. He was supposed to be her hero; he had come to her rescue and now it was supposed to be happily ever after. But it wasn't… it wasn't…

All those years of wishing… wishing… wishing. She had been his dream and it jarred him to realize that he really didn't know her as well as he'd thought. It frightened him to realize how much of what he loved about her was of his own prediction. She was his glowing fantasy, but it was hard to see her when she was surrounded by that haze.

If he had known her as well as he should've, he would've known the freedom she needed. He would've known that she needed to fly and that he couldn't be the one to give her her wings.

But he loved her… he loved her…

He loved her enough to let her fly.

The ship was but a spot on the horizon.

**

            Elizabeth could see Port Royal in the distance. She picked out the spot on the docks were Will had been when she had left.

            It had hurt her to hurt him. She didn't love him, but that didn't mean she didn't care for him. She was remembering all the times they had tramped through her father's gardens as children and all the times her father had scolded her for getting another dress dirty. And she had told Will about getting in trouble, and the next time they had played outside and she tore the hem of her dress, he had fixed it for her before her father could see.

            Oh, she hoped Will would be happy. She hoped a lot of things for Will. That he would become a pirate again and go to Tortuga and love a barmaid and that would be enough to get his mind off of Elizabeth.

            But oh, if he went to Tortuga he wouldn't be able to forget her. Because that was where she was headed…


	3. Following the Compass

Flights of Fancy 

By Illoria

**_A/N:_**_ Argh. I know I don't like it when it takes as long as I've taken to update this story… :\ I'm sorry. I really want to make it good and I have been doing a bit, a bit, of semi-procrastinating and the like. I'm sorry and I'll try to be quicker from now on. *nods nods* :)_

_And I know this chapter is fairly short. I figured I would leave it like that and update anyway. :)_

_And - thank you thank you thank you for the reviews! I love you all. :D I really do appreciate those who reviewed, all of you, for all the positive feedback. *verybiggrin* :D  
  
_**Chapter Three:  Following the Compass**

          There was something beautiful about this.     

Elizabeth was standing at the bow of the merchant ship _Cordelia_, her off-white dress billowing about in the same fortuitous winds that filled the ship's sails. It was a funny thing, really, when she thought about it. Never had she thought she would be sailing away from Port Royal and heading to Tortuga in hopes of finding the Black Pearl there. But lo and behold, there she was. Not looking back.

          She _had_ looked back at the smithy that morning, though, at Will standing in the doorway in the dawn, when she had told him what she'd needed to tell him. And a bit of what she hadn't necessarily needed to tell him, but that she had told him anyway: where she was going. He hadn't asked why and she hadn't offered a reason. She knew he didn't need her to tell him.

          The navy would be out looking for her. After her previous experience with disappearing from Port Royal, they would be chasing pirate ships for her. And she knew that she was putting Jack in danger by trying to find him, because the Pearl would be even further up on their list after Elizabeth suddenly disappeared. But somehow she fancied that he might like the challenge…

          The navy would be out looking for her even though she had left her father a note. Not telling him where she was going, just that she was going. That she loved him but she could not stay any longer. And that was how she had left it. She wasn't sure if she regretted writing so little or thought she had written too much.

          She had left the note while her father was still sleeping. Right after she had taken the least decorative dress she owned and a pouch of coins. And then, after it was all done, she hastened to the docks without looking back and convinced a merchant ship's captain to let her pay him for passage to Tortuga, extra money for confidentiality. (Luckily the merchant captain did not know whom she was, and he was easily persuaded by the sum of money to refrain from asking any further questions.)

And then she had boarded the ship. And she hadn't taken her place at the stern looking at Port Royal shrinking in the distance. She stood instead at the bow.

And there was something inexplicably beautiful about it.  
  


**  
  
          Eventually she went below decks upon the first-mate's persuasion. She would've liked to stay up on deck giving navigational advice, warnings about coming squalls – like she had last time aboard the stolen Interceptor. But now there was no urgency, no "Quick! Someone think of a plan before we all die!" Elizabeth _was_ a little disappointed at the lack of adventure. Yes, she had realized that her standards were set very high and had even heightened after the whole adventure with the cursed treasure and whatnot. That once she had gotten a taste of that spice she simply could not settle for anything less biting.

She looked up with a start as footsteps announced that someone had entered. Her eyes met those of a stranger with grey hair and wrinkled skin but bright eyes.

"Hello, Miss," the man said with a short bow. "I presume you are our guest?"

She nodded. "Yes. My name is Elizabeth-" A quick pause. This had happened before. Best be safe. "-Johnson." No, there would be no mistaking her for the heiress of a cursed pirate this time. Though she did find herself wondering what would happen if she said her name was Turner again…

"Nice to meet you, Miss Johnson." _Oh well_. "You can call me Edward. Edward Samson. I'm the ship's cook… just checking to see if you would like some lunch, Miss?"

"Oh," she said. "Yes, that would be nice. Thank you."

Another quick bow and Edward disappeared. Elizabeth was left alone with her own thoughts again (and she still wasn't quite sure if that was a good thing or not). She was thinking about the island of Tortuga. She knew it only from stories; a tortoise-shaped pirate haven that was seemingly the very birthplace of chaos itself. Pirate ships docked there to stock up on supplies for the next voyage, to have more than a few drinks and to make merry all about the place.

The Black Pearl would surely dock there soon; it was only sensible, right? She would need the supplies for wherever Jack was taking her next. And – no matter how far away it seemed – it had been _yesterday _that the Pearl had sailed out of Port Royal. The Pearl _was _the fastest ship in the Caribbean, so she would arrive in Tortuga soon. And Elizabeth's little merchant ship would be there maybe a day afterward, if there were no delays.

It was all set, then. Tortuga it was. The isle of her storybooks, of all the histories she'd memorized. All right.

She was steadily realizing how insane this really was. Did she just expect to disembark at Tortuga and hop onto the Black Pearl and have Jack take her away just like that?

Honestly? Yes, she did.

So maybe she was crazy, then. _Suitable enough for a pirate. _She smiled slightly to herself at the absurdity of the whole thing. Oh, but the world _was_ quite an absurd place. And that enthralled her because all her life her world had been a stifled place where absurdity was condemned with the worst of them, and now it was as if the small box she'd been placed in had had its walls collapsed and she was running away before it could be rebuilt, not quite sure where she was going but going there as fast as she could.

Edward reappeared in the room and startled her again. He placed a tray on the table, laden with some food and a drink.

He started to leave again, but she looked up at him. "I could use some company."

Truth be told she was getting scared again. _Damn it. _Why was she getting frightened? If she was going to be a pirate, she would most definitely have to do away with that fright. Not a positive quality at all, that. But truth be told, she was frightened that when she got to Tortuga, Jack wouldn't be there after all. Or that he would be there and would just turn her around back to Port Royal, and she'd have to explain the unexplainable to her father while he watched from behind his desk, tip-tapping his fingers on mahogany and wondering how his daughter had gone so very wrong.

Edward smiled and re-entered the room. "All right, miss," he said, taking a seat in a chair from the corner.

There was a moment of silence. Then Edward said, "So, Miss Johnson, what brings you aboard the _Cordelia_?"

A corner of Elizabeth's mouth arced upward. _It's a funny story, really…_

"It's kind of a long story."

Edward leaned forward in a gesture of interest.

Elizabeth leaned backward slightly.

"I… I'm not really at liberty to say, Mr. Samson."

_Ha. _That was an amusing cover-up…

Edward paused. Then he looked at her and smiled again. "You're disembarking at our next stop, I presume?"

The next stop would be Tortuga, obviously. Elizabeth hesitated. Then she nodded.

Edward raised his eyebrows as this was confirmed. He must've been confused, Elizabeth thought. What was a woman doing getting passage to Tortuga? She had on no face powder, no corset, no fancy hairdo, and the only plain dress that she owned; deliberate things to erase the traces of aristocracy from her appearance. Edward wouldn't be able to tell where she was coming from, but he knew where she was going. Plenty of things could be inferred and guessed and filled in, but this ship's cook would surely not be able to guess her real reasons…!

Elizabeth wasn't going to inform him, either. So Edward leaned back in his chair again.

"Captain says it'll be three days until we dock in Tortuga," he informed her. 

Elizabeth nodded, her mind flashing with images of the Black Pearl speeding on ahead of them. Her dark hull gliding through the water, sails skimming through the sky. Jack at the helm. A shiver ran unbidden up her spine.

The captain of the _Cornelia _called for Edward up on deck. He bowed quickly to Elizabeth and then hurried up the stairs to answer the captain's call.

She was left alone once again, her mind's eye still focused on the Pearl.

She had never seen Jack as captain of his beloved ship. (When he'd gotten the Pearl back, she'd been, of course, busy kissing Will. At this point, it was just a bit ironic. But that fact aside…) She hadn't seen Jack with the Pearl, but she'd heard him talk about her. She'd heard the reverence in his voice as he raised his bottle to his ship, and the passion simmering under the surface when he'd told her that the Pearl was freedom.

A thought occurred to Elizabeth.

What if this really was nothing but a fool's errand? A silly little girl practically skipping off to find her captain. And it turned out that the pirate didn't care about her; just himself and his ship.

Well, he _had_ saved her life. In more ways than one, though he might not have known that.

Perhaps he did care. Perhaps he didn't. But there was really no way of knowing – other than finding out for herself, of course. Perhaps this was a fool's errand. But what she would never have to do was waste away wondering.

**  
  
          Elizabeth spent the following days on the deck of the _Cordelia_. Some of the sailors protested, saying didn't she want to be below decks, out of the sun? She smiled at them and said no thank you. She would rather feel the wind on her face, tangling her hair.

She had but her one dress, which was, really, getting a bit worse-for-wear by now. Rumpled and with a general deflated look about it. The _Cordelia_'s captain had asked her to dine with him on that first night, and had taken out a dress, saying that she could borrow it for the voyage if she'd like. He didn't question as to why she had only the clothes she was wearing, nothing more.

The captain was nice enough. He didn't seem stuffy and pompous, like most of the merchant captains she'd met along the way, through her father. Elizabeth thought fleetingly that it wouldn't surprise her at all if this particular captain eventually went on the account himself.

During the days, she kept her eyes open for black sails on the horizon. During the nights, she had trouble falling asleep in her stuffy cabin below-decks. She wondered if she would chance going up on deck.

  
          Eventually, she decided – where was the harm in that? So she got up out of bed and went up the stairs to the deck.

When she opened the door at the top of the stairs, her breath was literally taken away. The decks were empty save for the man on watch, who paid her no mind. The sails barely stood out in the darkness against a sky lighted by millions of brilliant stars, the full moon glowing in a pool of otherworldly light up in the sky.

It really did take her a moment to get her composure back. The scene was so beautiful; the starry sky so boundless that she felt that she could yell and her voice would go on forever.

There was only one day left to the voyage. Eventually she crept back down into her cabin and slept. She dreamt that the Black Pearl was sailing through the stars, the moon a giant compass.


	4. Certain Piratical Places

Flights of Fancy 

By Illoria

_A/N: More and more thanks for everybody's support of this story. YOU ROCK!! =)_

**Chapter Four: Certain Piratical Places**

          The _Cordelia _had docked only a little while before nightfall, the captain had bid her farewell, and Edward had tipped his hat to her. The gangplank had been let down, and she had stepped onto the docks, finding it only slightly odd to be back on solid land.

          She _had _insisted that she could fare for herself on the island. She really had. But for some reason, Edward hadn't believed her. (The rest of the _Cordelia_'s crew hadn't really seemed to care one way or the other.) So, when the crew disembarked, it had been Edward who had suggested that he accompany her, just to where she needed to get.

          She had scoped out the docks for the Black Pearl, Edward in toe.

And the Pearl wasn't there.

          After she'd calmed down a bit – she _had_ expected that the Pearl would without-a-doubt be there – she had reasoned that Jack's ship was probably docked offshore, stashed away in some cove, a hidden place where she would be safe. The navy _was _without-a-doubt looking for the Pearl, after all. They were, actually, probably searching quite frantically for the Pearl because they were surely searching quite frantically for Elizabeth.

          A pang of guilt hit her, along with a sudden sadness as she thought of Will, Will and her father and Norrington.

          Edward noticed her sudden faltering.

          "Are you all right, Miss?"

          She righted herself and nodded.

          "I was expecting a ship here, that is all."

          "What's the name of the ship you're looking for? Mayhap I've heard news of her."

          Of course she couldn't tell that it was none other than the Black Pearl that she was looking for. Edward was an honest sailor, a man of the law, right? So he would surely not condone her searching for a pirate ship. He would probably even suspect her of piratical activities, too.

          "I can't really tell you. I'm sorry."

          Edward nodded and bowed his head to her, then looked back up. "S'pose I'll have to respect that."

          Elizabeth nodded, distracted again. She was back to scanning the ships docked at Tortuga. She had been so sure that she would see the Pearl there… but there she was, and there the Pearl wasn't.

          **  
  
          Will had no idea what to do with himself.

          Hours of pounding steel at the smithy had not resulted in a new sword; on the contrary, all he had was a distracted mess with no trace of the fine craftsmanship that had created all the others. Even Mr. Brown noticed that there was something wrong with Will, and he'd given him the day off after seeing that nothing worth making would come out of Will's distraction.

          Will paced the docks, he walked through town. In the marketplace he gave up three shillings because a ring reminded him of Elizabeth.

          Will was a mess.

Norrington noticed.

Will ran into the Commodore during his second round of pacing the docks. Norrington stopped him and asked why was he doing all that mumbling to himself; it took a moment for Will to respond, because he hadn't even noticed that he'd been mumbling. And when Will started to respond, Norrington cut him off anyway.

"You miss Elizabeth. I know." The Commodore spoke this fact plain as day, hands folded neatly behind his back, turned slightly and looking out over the docks to the sea. No passerby would've noted anything different about the Commodore, but Will did – because Will most definitely recognized the look in Norrington's eyes. Norrington knew what it was like to miss Elizabeth.

"I must admit I'm surprised, Mr. Turner."

Will's look turned to confusion. It was no surprise that he missed Elizabeth so; just yesterday he had kissed her up on the battlements after admitting his love for her, and today she was gone.

"I'm surprised that you haven't gone after her, that is."

Norrington's words, tinged with a certain sadness, seemed to hit Will right in the chest. It was ironic in a specific way; that Will wanted so much to go after Elizabeth, but knew that he couldn't because she didn't want him to. Oh, how he wanted to go after her – to sweep her up and take her away wherever she wanted. But he knew – and what a painful knowledge it was – that he wasn't the one that Elizabeth wanted to sweep her away.

There was a silence.

Then, to Will's surprise, Norrington laughed. Will gave him another awkward, confused look.

"I know, Mr. Turner. I know that Elizabeth wasn't kidnapped this time."

Will just stared at the Commodore, unable to think of anything to say. After a little while, he spoke.

"How do you know?"

Norrington paused. "Because I know Elizabeth." He smiled, sadly. "…Mr. Turner. I think that the two of us have more in common than we'd like to think."

Will knew that it was true. Both himself and Commodore Norrington had admired Elizabeth from afar for all those years; this was just the first time that Will realized that all those chance meetings with Elizabeth in the market had probably been followed by dinners in the Swann household with Norrington as the guest.

An odd sort of understanding seemed to waver in the air between the two, gone almost before it had arrived and leaving behind only a wisp.

Another silence had come over the docks. Norrington bowed briefly to Will before taking a step back and saying, "Good day, Mr. Turner." And then he left.

**  
  
          Norrington left the docks, walking up the roads that lead to the Swann mansion. He was let through the gates and he came to the house, but he needed not enter. The governor was standing before the steps, smoking a pipe with a distracted look in his eyes. Only as Norrington moved closer did Governor Swann lower his pipe and turn to his guest.

"Good afternoon, Commodore," Weatherby Swann said.

"Good afternoon," Norrington greeted.

The Commodore could tell that the governor was distressed. His wig was just a little bit askew; not enough to be noticed by any others who hadn't spent a fair portion of their lives in contact with the governor and his straight wig. But the tip-off was his eyes, that distraction, and the pipe that Norrington had never seen Governor Swann smoking before, and the fact that the governor had been standing outside waiting to greet Norrington, not inside waiting for the butler to greet his guest.

When Elizabeth had been kidnapped – not long ago at all though it seemed very far away – Weatherby Swann had maintained a certain levelness – for the most part, anyway, and of course it had only appeared after the shock had agreed to let anything else through. There had been a certain "this is what we have to do"; though the governor had, of course, showed his worry, and also his urgency in finding his daughter.

Now, the worry was still there, and deep in the lines on the governor's face. But not that sense of strategy; that seemed as far-off as the look in his eyes.

A sea breeze came in and swept up the smoke from the pipe that Governor Swann had lifted back up to his lips.

Neither of the two men said anything.

It wasn't as Elizabeth suspected. Both her father and Norrington believed that she had left Port Royal of her own will; they both believed the note she had left, and really knew not what to do about it. Elizabeth would have been surprised to find this out; she was so sure that no one would ever believe her a runaway.

In Tortuga, Elizabeth was thinking about how she would go back someday, maybe a day not so far away, and she would go back as a free woman, who could choose the length and manner of her stay, and it would just be a visit, and then she would fly away again. Because, well, her father really did deserve more than a brief note, even if his place wasn't what she wanted hers to be.

**

          Elizabeth took a deep breath to calm all the various things that were flitting about inside of her.

          What to do, what to do?

          _Bloody pirates_. All for secrecy, eh? Nooo, couldn't just tie down at the docks. Had to be a hideaway, had to up the drama. This was bloody Tortuga! Everyone there was doing something illegal; why not throw piracy in the mix too? What was the need for secrecy?!

          (No, Elizabeth wasn't letting herself think that the Black Pearl might not even be there at all.)

          "Miss-"

          She was pacing the small space before one of the docks. She stopped as Edward gave her a series of odd looks.

          "I just – don't quite know what to do. Sir. I was expecting a ship."

          "Expecting someone?"

          She faltered, only a bit. "Yes. I'm expecting someone, who isn't here, and I have no _idea _where to look for them."

          "You know, miss, if you just tell me the name of the ship you're lookin' for, I'll bet I can help you. I hear tell of all sorts of ships and their voyages."

          Maybe she should just tell him. Maybe it wouldn't do that much harm. It wasn't like Edward was _Norrington_ (pang of guilt, there) or anything. He was just a merchant sailor. And if he could tell her that the Pearl wasn't headed for Tortuga after all, then wouldn't it be worth telling him the name of the ship?

          No, no. It was a big secret. She couldn't just go blurting out that she was looking for a pirate ship – and not just any pirate ship! _The _pirate ship! The_ Black Pearl_!

          She was pretty much stuck, now that she thought of it. She was on the island of Tortuga with no way to get off of it, considering that all her money was gone on the voyage there. And she frankly didn't know _what _to do now that she didn't know if the Pearl was even there at all; frolicking about Tortuga looking for Jack Sparrow when he might not even be there didn't seem a very good plan of action, especially now that the sun was starting to set and Tortuga wasn't a very good place for her to be after dark considering that she had never been there before, that she knew it only from stories, and that she had no idea where to go.

          "The Black Pearl."

          Edward's eyes widened. "The _Black Pearl_? I hear tell of the _Pearl;_ in fact, just before we set off from Port Royal, a ship docked with the latest news of her…" She had expected that.

          But what came next was not what she had expected.

          "… What I heard, Miss, was that… well… She went down."         


	5. The Winds Converge

Flights of Fancy  
  
By Illoria  
  
Author's Note: Yahaha! It feels good to be back in a way. But what am I saying that for? I haven't added to this story in months & months. I would say I'm sorry, but I guess I couldn't write unless I wanted to. But I read every review anyway and thought about not keeping up the story but I decided I wanted to after the reviews convinced me.  
  
Thank you to everyone who reviewed. Thanks for poking and prodding me and um... threatening me to write more on this story. It's the pirate fancy that makes fanfiction writers write, and I hadn't been much for pirate fancy for a little while, but you can't exactly have full summer in my way without having pirates, so. :)  
  
I think this is the most "intense" (even though short... I felt it should end where it did. The CHAPTER, I mean, not the STORY) chapter so far. I looked out the window in the night-time after writing it and could imagine I was near the beach in Tortuga.  
  
Here we go. :)  
  
Chapter Five: The Winds Converge  
  
Falter and submerged, falling into the water at the base of the pier, my! - it's deeper than it looked, sinking down, a dark plummet, stones and clogging her lungs the water pressing down and the seaweed wrapping about her ankles and she's faltering...  
  
Elizabeth gasped for air as if she had just broken the surface of a foreign sea. But in reality, she was just standing there by the pier, with Edward looking concernedly at her. Her dress was dirty; her hair was matted to her head. Sweat dripped down her forehead in the hot sun that was just beginning to set over a surrealistic world; the waves that lapped at the empty docks.  
  
"It – can't be true." Her voice came from the wavering plains above her, a light on the surreal surface; she can't speak because she's drowning.  
  
Edward took his hat off and held it in both his hands in front of him. He bowed his head down but his dark eyes were lifted and studying Elizabeth's pallid face. The captain had not told Edward, or any of the other crew members of the Cordelia, why this guest had embarked with them on a trip to Tortuga. They had all wondered about the pretty lady, all wondered why she was alone.  
  
The salty air wrapped about Elizabeth, the widow's shawl. If she stood at the end of the pier and looked out to sea, would the horizon be empty? She dared not look to see her dreams all gone. There was a silence. The air was sweltering, and the docks smelled like the sweat of sailors, tar and feathers, tar and feathers... Elizabeth felt a great unease fill her. She felt as if she were going to be sick, and the feeling reminded her to call the maid to help her with a cold cloth across her forehead. Why was she in Tortuga?  
  
Her eyes alighted on Edward. Who was he? A faint swimming of images in the thickness pervading her mind. What was she doing here? - Chasing a fancy whose departure seared the membranes of her finest fears and brought hot tears to her eyes, scorching. The air was sweltering.  
  
The second demanded a response. Elizabeth could just remain standing there forever with the searing and the breaking and the persistent image of tar and feathers. The image of a shipwreck hadn't come fully to her yet. She hadn't realized it yet, even. She was on the verge of it, though...  
  
"I don't-"  
  
Jack was dead. That immortal pirate with a cursed tongue and rum burning, the gold, the gold, the gold, he was gone? No... Was he her dream? Was he real? What was he? Where was she? What had she been doing? It was all a dream, a haze... like smoke from the flames of an island fire. Come rescue me! I'm waking up.  
  
Waves crashing through a breakwall, the fires, cannons in the night, silence. The roar of the sea, the spray of the waves, she was cursed too, she could not feel it.  
  
"Miss!"  
  
Her body fell in a heap on the hot ground; she was suddenly aware of how tangled her hair was, how messy it was. Why hadn't she brushed it at least? It was tousled in salt.  
  
She could cry the sea now if she could only... Why wasn't she crying?  
  
It was all unreal. She couldn't grasp the realization. Was that because it was not true?  
  
She sat up and held clods of dirt in her hands. "How do you know? How do you know that it is true?"  
  
Edward was looking down at her like someone looks down at a sick person who doesn't know what they say in their sleep. Finally he started talking.  
  
"We - us on the Cordelia, I mean - we had just got in at Port Royal, and another ship comes in, and we met the captain when they docked. He started tellin' our captain about, talkin' to him I mean, 'surely he knew of the Black Pearl?' O'course... an' this captain, he said, with great mirth... The Pearl was sunk, not far out, 'parrently just having left Port Royal - our cap'n said, lucky for us, and we..."  
  
Elizabeth was looking at her dirty hands. All the dirty deeds of years and years of piracy were on her hands, at the bottom of the sea. Where was the dark muse who beckoned her sailors forth, braving the depths? She would not trust such a friend.  
  
Edward's eyes narrowed. This lady, this woman had seemed to be elegant, high-class. The captain did not like to question; they were not the Navy, they had no responsibility. If a lady wants to run away and offers the right of passage to them, why should they turn her down? They didn't turn down passengers generally; plenty of people needing to get somewhere... or to get away. Had they thought of this with her? He could not remember, like many things. Notions passed by so quickly.  
  
Merchant sailors were not as honorable as they seemed.  
  
Of course Edward could not ask this fine lady why she had paid for passage to Tortuga. He was below her, she was above him. If the captain had not told him, then he had no right to know. Duty was the matter of things, after all. Perhaps she also had a duty? - to her madness.  
  
Then he would have to find some decorum quickly and pull his charge together.  
  
"Miss," said Edward, "what can I do for you? Ask the captain for your passage back..."  
  
"No!"  
  
If Edward said anything else, Elizabeth did not hear him. She wasn't quite sure where she was or how she had gotten here. Of course she had come from Port Royal to Tortuga on the merchant ship Cordelia. But the question was, what ambiguous path was that of her fancy which she had ridden henceforth? The path or course of reason or madness was lost to her now. All paths seemed to lead to the secrets swallowed up by the sea. Curses on islands that she had not believed. Had it all been just a dream? Surely she would wake up soon.  
  
But she couldn't. She was so changed that she could not wake up and be all right. If this was a dream, then she was so changed by it that she could not wake up. It had so pervaded into her that it had shattered the things that she had held to be true, revealed some tangled-in-sea-weed things that she had thought to be lost, reversed the very poles of her balance, and set her stumbling on the shores awash in rum. In her loss of reason, indeed did she feel as though everything was exaggerated. Her dress was soaked in rum. Her throat was burning from the screams. But it was only tinges of sea- spray and the damp, humid air. It was only that she was parched from too much saltwater that she could not drink.  
  
She felt very detached from herself and from all that had ever grounded her before. She had cut the threads of rationality when she ran away like a little girl clutching a knapsack and her favorite blanket, that of fancy, and then her fancies had become the thinnest and most wispy thread to hold her to the siren-singing figurehead plunging through the sea, thrust forward on a pirate ship, a pirate ship -  
  
- Splintered by cannon-fire.  
  
The sickness rose up again. She would've fallen had she not already been on the ground. Shifty sailors gave her coarse looks. Was she but a whore who had not done a fine enough job to earn enough money to stand firmly on her two feet? A whore to mad dreams, no doubt of that!  
  
Here she had come from fanning herself on the battlements thinking of Will Turner and Norrington both and now she was clutching clods of dirt in her hands on the ground with her dirty hair blowing about her face, becoming even more tangled in the gusts from the sea. Now she could cry.  
  
Instead she screamed. She screamed and hit the ground with her fists until the gravelly sea-shore soil was hurting her and hurting her. Why, it should! How fast does a ship sink? How dirty is the rope to hold a captain to his helm? How much does the salty sea wash dirty deeds from the hands of a sinking pirate? How much rum would be lost at the bottom of the sea - good rum, worthy rum, that could burn her throat enough to intoxicate her out of this flailing misery! How many bottles that could be broken or burned!  
  
A vile drink that turns even the most respectable gentlemen into complete scoundrels.  
  
If rum does such a thing to respectable gentlemen, then what does it do to ladies?  
  
Was she intoxicated the night she ran away? What was she thinking about on that island? It was about trickery to get Will rescued. Will. She had thought she loved Will, then. How easy it was now to say she had thought, when at the time she had really loved him! What a funny thing, love. Just as deceptive as a curse.  
  
A bloody curse!  
  
She wasn't herself. Who was herself? She didn't know any more. Why was she reacting like this? Nothing could be explained anymore, now that she had broken reason like an empty bottle over her own head and plunged herself into a spell of unconsciousness, in which reality and unreality blurred so easily together that she knew nothing.  
  
What is there to know?  
  
Elizabeth stood up and smoothed her skirt over.  
  
"It's not true," she said, tilting her chin upward, letting her hair fall away from her face. A sea breeze came over Tortuga as the sun sank away.  
  
Edward didn't know what to say or do. He felt like he himself was barely there anymore.  
  
Elizabeth looked out to sea. What now? The pirate of her fancy was gone, or he was not. But was he gone anyway to her? Even something else had just shattered. How many layers of fragile glass was she made of before the core? She shivered with the notion that all she was, was so many layers of glass, down to her fragile, fragile core. Just a child grasping for a fancy, a grappling hook, a gang-plank. Passages to the ship that had already left.  
  
Shatter, shatter. The pirate of her fancy was only herself. 


	6. A Dance

Flights of Fancy  
  
by Laura  
  
Author's Note: Thank you to the reviewers :D Also I apologize to early readers of this chapter, because the formatting got messed up and all the transitions disappeared. Ack. :p Fixed now though. :)  
  
Chapter Six: A Dance  
  
Guises and layers. He had been walking so long. No, he was at sea. He weaved to them. They called him mad. But then again - they called him mad. What was he but the most brightly glittering speck they'd ever seen? No, no. A fish jumped out of water, splashing before landing back in. The sun had gotten to him long ago. But why shouldn't it have? The sun is there, lighting the world. Was the world then also mad? Why not let himself go mad? No, no.  
  
Sparrow.  
  
So he did have a name. That was him. What? Like waves. Sputter of the first sip of rum. What was he doing here? Yes. Voyage to those faraway lands. Pirate.  
  
A world that could still intoxicate him and make him feel a fuller extent of his being. What his heart-strings were made of, he felt the same in the sea. Why? The salt and brine. Lady Sea will hide everything to you and make you so dizzy that you can hardly even stand sturdy on your own two feet. The words of a salty seaman himself. Had he believed it, or only been so enchanted by it, like the dreamy glitters of gold upon the surface of the sea?  
  
He grinned and laughed. Let himself waver a little. What was the harm in another round?  
  
-  
  
Elizabeth's lantern-light lit aglow a small circle on the table-top. The light wavered as the lantern slid softly and crashed to the floor.  
  
She was back in "her" cabin aboard the merchant ship Cordelia, after Edward had explained to the captain that the ship that Elizabeth had expected to be there for her in the harbor was not there after all, and the captain had not seemed to care all that much, only Elizabeth was Edward's charge, and the Cordelia was to be docked in Tortuga for two days yet, and there was nothing else to do, because she was quite stranded.  
  
How bloody ironic! She was a runaway, a fugitive lady, she had no right to be in a position that trapped her so!  
  
But really, she didn't care much. Or maybe she did. She really couldn't tell. She hardly noted the fallen lantern and the light that had gone out. There was only moonlight that was not turning her hand to bone because she was still alive. Seemingly stuck in a waking dream, yes, but alive.  
  
Was this what it was like for Barbossa's crew? She would never know. Unless she went and plucked a piece of gold from a chest on a cursed island far away, that might or might not have been real after all. If the Pearl was not here, then there was no testament. For all she knew, it could have not happened after all. And Will was gone - no, wait - she was gone. Oh, yes.  
  
She wasn't herself. She let the sea fill in, in the places where she did not want to go, to fix. She let the trilling gulls amass the gold discarded, and the waves lapped ever at the side of the boat, casting the lantern-light from the deck above askew about, for she could see the changing yellow-golden lights upon the waves. Strange how each influenced the other.  
  
Hot tears, the salt. This was all ending. How dare it interrupt her... What would she do?  
  
-  
  
The sailors on the main deck above had bottles in their hands and the sails caught the golden light cast by the lanterns that they held grasped in their left hands, that were not holding the bottles, and they swayed. They were on watch. How were merchant sailors respectable, exactly? The rest of the crew was out about the island upon this night, and it was darkly gleaming.  
  
Only Edward, the ship's cook, and that anonymous passenger - why was she still here? They didn't think about it much - were still aboard with the two night-watchmen, who were drinking from their bottles on the ship, in place of being on the island.  
  
The captain had a lady with him, only she was not a lady, for she was on his lap rather than his arm. The first-mate was in a swinging duel of dirty words with the tavern owner, for charging him too much for too many drinks. And the watchmen were beneath the sails furled, with the lantern-light swinging round upon them, and then the water.  
  
The wind was not much for playing games tonight, and it did not whip their caps off, like it did sometimes out on a rough sea somewhere between here and Spain with a haughty trade about the merchant ship. They had taken so many barrels of crops from the plantations, that slaves' hands had picked under the same hot, hot sun that intoxicated them all through the day when they were up in the rigging or swabbing the deck, but no one cared quite enough. They were here and there and done again and a businessman wrote down the earnings and the balance in a record-book with a red leather cover and his money in a vault off somewhere else, gallivanting with a safety- code and merchants' secrets, that weren't so secret after all.  
  
-  
  
There is only so much one can do until she must do something.  
  
Elizabeth gathered up her skirts and walked down the gang-plank. She stepped onto the pier like a maiden of the past from a sea-voyage with a serpent as her figurehead. Only there wasn't much serpent or venom in Elizabeth, really. She was more catty sometimes, only she would not admit this.  
  
"Thank you for your services," she said to Edward, who had escorted her off of the ship to wish her well. He was, after all, her caretaker.  
  
He did not want to leave her here. Well, they couldn't very well take a passenger with them everywhere they went after this - where would they let her off, if not here? - if she had nowhere to go, like she had said? She said she would get passage back to Port Royal on a respectable ship.  
  
But how can one tell which ships are respectable, on the island of Tortuga?  
  
Elizabeth held in her hand a pouch of money that had been given to her. It contained Edward's earnings for the time he had spent as the passenger's watchman, in addition to his regular week's fare as the ship's cook. Elizabeth had thanked him profusely, and taken the money, because what else could she do? All of her own money had been spent on the voyage over.  
  
Edward was a good, honest sailor, the likes of which she thought perhaps she had never met before. He was the middle, the merchant sailors, and before this she had known only two extremes. The Navy, watchful over her entire life up till recently, and pirates, pirates. The Navy were too "good" to really be considered good, honest sailors, so she could count them as nothing but Norrington, which summed up everything in Elizabeth's mind.  
  
Merchant sailors, she thought, were good, honest men. Could turn pirate in a minute or at a pin-drop if they wanted to, or if the grappling hooks had them reeled in just precisely. Ha!  
  
They pulled in the gang-plank. She had no connection, now. She was as adrift as she had ever wanted to be. Was this freedom? It started in her that it could be if she knew how to make it so. Perhaps there was an unsuspected fine line between freedom and entrapment, she thought, as she stood upon the pier.  
  
She got a room in an inn, the closest inn to the harbor. The sensible thing to do, when there was no sense left whatsoever. It was very strange indeed how she had torn all the sense from her world and extracted herself so from it, and now she was lost, and since there was no more reason, did not know what to do, except rent a room in an inn, and stay locked up there all night when the rest of the world with their lurid lantern-lights went gallivanting out away with their voices like grimy trumpets in the gravel horns and she would do anything to do something.  
  
-  
  
William Turner's father was a merchant sailor who had turned pirate in a minute, or at a pin-drop, apparently, but he would never know why he had wanted to, or if the grappling hooks had had him reeled in just precisely. Sometimes Will was angry about it, and sometimes a strange sadness washed over him, for it was not sadness, really, rather it was waves. But the sea was a lady, and it had not been she who had cursed his father so.  
  
The swords got made punctually. Navy men needed them rather frequently. Will did not like to think of the harm that his hands would do by making swords. Rather he examined their craft, the steel that could have been harmless, that had had the potential to be anything other than a sword also. But swords they were, and they were everywhere. For protection, for marauders. For dueling and for dignitaries to hang upon their walls with their coat-of-arms. For - for -  
  
Will didn't really like to think about it.  
  
He had always thought that it was all right to make so many swords, because the Navy's men were utterly respectable, and they needed their swords, especially ceremonially. How odd, to ceremonially present a sword! To slice a feather from a hat because it had been so obscene. What was the order of things, if he was a blacksmith and it all started with him? Was he waging wars?  
  
But Will didn't really like to think about it, other than that it was his craft, and that was pounding steel, nothing more.  
  
He would go to find Elizabeth. He had promised not to, but broken promises were the pirate's way, and damn it, pirates seemed to be so much better off than he was currently. What if she were in trouble? What if things had not turned out the way she had... expected...  
  
Will sighed. It was useless. What was useless? Everything. The feathers in hats, and their buckles. As if that could keep anyone where they were meant to be, when they were not supposed to be there.  
  
Elizabeth's father was utterly worried and Norrington was sending out a search party. Respect had worn off, because they had all realized finally that there was nothing to respect. It was frantic. The Navy was going out, a contingent, that could quicker turn into a fleet. Will was going with them; he had set it up; Norrington had not listened to him last time, but now, as everyone knew, everything was different.  
  
The Dauntless set out again, chasing pirates, like she had always done, since the moment of her birth, the timbers strong.  
  
The wind whipped in Will's face and he heard something, like always.  
  
He loved her so bloody much.  
  
-  
  
Somewhere, the stars and black sails wove just as well as the Fates with their spinning-wheel a history.  
  
-  
  
Elizabeth Swann hated rum. She hated Tortuga. If rum was the vilest of drinks, then Tortuga was the vilest of places, and she wanted nothing more to do with it.  
  
Tortuga, she thought, was not the epitome of piracy after all. It was nothing like the island of her pirate fantasies. No, no. The real thing was out at sea. The sea-spray. The adventure in the tang. That was a better form of intoxication, because it was not so, but it was real, whereas the rum was not. She still did not have it, and she would not have it in Tortuga, for it was solid land, however many pirate ships came to its shores. It was not the open sea's adventure, because it was not the destination when she was already there.  
  
She needed a ship. She needed Jack! The Pearl! Yes, the black sails unfurled in her heart. That old tremor of excitement. What were sailors' rumors, anyway? The Pearl, sunk? It could not be. Those black sails were filled with wind, or else her heart would not trill so to their canvas whipping. Elizabeth did not like to doubt herself.  
  
What of love? Had she thought she loved him, the bloody pirate who had gone and spun another rumor about himself?  
  
Was she drunk?  
  
Maybe she was, and maybe she wasn't. Either way, Elizabeth still hated rum utterly, although it did seem to burn rather well, and it had, in a way, saved her life once. Funny, the way each influenced the other.  
  
If she was drunk, then it was impossible, because she had not touched a drop of liquor. If she was drunk upon the night air like pirates are sometimes, then it was also impossible, for she kept her window shuttered, and the lantern-light afforded all her illumination in the place of moonlight. To open her window and let in the moon-glow, she would have to take a chance - also would be let in the sweat and the grime of the carousers below and the yells of the men and the coins falling freely, and that wasn't all, it was horrible. She couldn't take a chance.  
  
She had commanded a pirate crew against another pirate crew once, been captured, thought she was going to be sacrificed with nothing she could do about it, longed for Will to save her, striven to save Will (that was when the rum burned best), fought cursed pirates to rescue everything. Next to that, this - having run away, trapped herself up in a shuttered room in Tortuga - was small.  
  
But her adventurous life had slipped away before it had even begun, it seemed, and now she was back to longing for it. Only it had gone round in a cycle, and dropped her headfirst alone in Tortuga, and if she were a real pirate lady then it would be fine, only she wasn't, because she was far too dignified to drink rum.  
  
But what about that island? What had she been thinking? To save Will, of course. And the shiver when Jack put his hand on her shoulder. Oh, that. She was trying not to think of Jack, because in the back of her mind, Jack could have been dead. She shook off the weight. It was impossible, implausible, merchant sailors were not that respectable after all.  
  
There is only so much one can do until she must do something. After all.  
  
And there was a lot of all. Elizabeth lay on the bed, sobbing thoroughly.  
  
And then she rose, and crossed the room, and looked in the mirror, to see if her reflection had the answers to her listless inaction - no, if her reflection had the answers to her. Confound it! would say a character in one of her old storybooks. But this wasn't worth it any longer. She gazed into the looking-glass.  
  
Oh, she wanted that pirate medallion back! She could've worn it right now, and felt a little better. What a foolish thought! She scolded herself immediately. The woman in the mirror scowled.  
  
She didn't look much different than she had that day she had looked at herself in the mirror, that morning. Norrington's promotion day. She had risen late, to the candle-light, after a dream. Crossed to the glass and put on the medallion. What a different woman was she who had done so! She had not known what that fanciful notion and gesture would do...  
  
Strange how things happened like that... how everything turned in a circle, a cycle, back around her... back to her, and everyone else... Was it possible that she too was cursed?  
  
She concentrated on her reflection. The woman in the glass seemed so much better off.  
  
How many lies, or truths, separated Port Royal from Tortuga? How many lengths of rope, fathoms deep, or gold coins laid out in a row? How much of her, stretched thin and worn? The chamber-maid scowling brought biscuits to her in the morning when she called, and she became too listless and lost in thought to take another bite after breakfast. She was awfully thin. She wouldn't even need a corset now, would she, if she were back there? What an odd thought that was!  
  
"Turn yourself around... and pick yourself up. You are strong."  
  
But she didn't want herself to tell her that she was strong. She wanted someone to tell her that it would be all right.  
  
It would've been Jack. Of course, he would not have told her any such thing. One could not get much comfort from a mad pirate. But the look of him was so immortal that she could have believed it.  
  
How confusing are the heart's games and webs! As Elizabeth gazed at herself in the looking-glass, she was realizing something that women had been realizing throughout all the ages before her. And it was a thing to be confounded still. Love had made her drink the rum then burn it all. Love had made her lie to dire consequences. Love had led her pirate fancies, the feather on Will's hat, the tears in her eyes, the missing thing in the kiss. Jack's hand on her shoulder and the fire crackling. How was it that she was more deserted now? She had deserted herself... on a whim... on a flight of fancy.  
  
She watched the tears fall down her cheeks, she watched her long long hair unfurl as she untied it, she watched her lips partly open, and her eyes with the mysteries therein. She watched a little girl growing up, though she was twenty, for goodness' sake, and it had all been such a thing to be confounded, when the boom swung round, and the sea was foaming, and at her order, the cannons fired, and her rafts all splintered.  
  
Now that she had broken herself, there was nothing to do but re-find something, in the grains of sand, or in the highest star, the wood of a ship's figurehead, who was a beautiful lady who knew all that Elizabeth knew not about love. She had loved a blacksmith, and she had loved a pirate, but before both she had never loved. Perhaps love must then be present in every ounce of one's being before it can be ignited by one's soul-mate, and she had never had it.  
  
She had wanted to save Will; she had loved Will. She had wanted Jack to set her free; she had loved a part of Jack, for he cast illusions everywhere he went, and a pirate lady's illusion was bound to fall in love with an illusion of Sparrow that he had left on her heart, inadvertently. But Elizabeth was not really a pirate lady, and her fantasies were slowly dissolving, right before her eyes, in the looking-glass.  
  
It could not happen. It could not be. Elizabeth had lived on fantasies, all throughout her life. The pirate hymns she hummed on the way to church on Sundays (amusing, that).  
  
But perhaps - her reflection, who looked somehow wiser than her, seemed to tell her, slowly - there comes a time when one must decide not to content herself merely in fantasies - when she must decide instead to live more than she ever has in any fantasy. When she must not only be contented with the notions of dreams' tapestries, locked up, far away, inaccessible - but instead, when she decides that she will find them in her very heart, and unleash them from the confines of her own mind, filling herself, and the world.  
  
Elizabeth opened the shutters and yelled out into the night.  
  
A thousand midnight carousers seemed to answer her with cat-calls to an unknown source; they did not know her; she would not concern herself with them. But a more prominent, and more important, answer seemed to reach her. It was the echo of her own voice, flying through the night, the sultry Tortuga night, yes - but also the greater night, the deepest night, that filled the Caribbean, where the stars were, where even the birds of dull plumage broke from their clippings and trilled through something of emptiness, filling it up. And then comes life, life, blossoming life, blooming trilling singing and dancing, a pirate song, whirling, anything that is true! Everything that is true! The embers that burned her feet, no, she was not drunk! She would never need to be drunk.  
  
Her own reflection had taught her the most important lesson of her life. The echo of her own voice had been the wild trill that set her free. How obvious it was, now! How utterly and completely magnificent was the night! She was no longer afraid, or trapped. How had she ever been trapped? She was in a hotel room, on the island of Tortuga, but the world was no smaller, and the horizon still as endless as ever! All she had needed to do...  
  
There were noises downstairs, and before she knew it, a knock on her door. She whirled around from the open window, and crossed the room. She opened the door as far as its chain would permit, and gasped loudly.  
  
"Will!"  
  
He stood, looking like - what? He did not look like the little boy he used to look like, sometimes, but he was not the noble pirate, either, with the feather and the buckle.  
  
He swallowed hard and looked at her. He felt like crying. Or doing - what? He did not know. So much had changed in him lately that he hardly knew what do any more.  
  
"Elizabeth," he said.  
  
But she felt so incredibly different that it was permissible to accept that Will Turner was standing in the hallway outside her room in an inn in Tortuga. After what had just happened - what had just happened? She had just set herself free, come to life, become a woman, and now Will was here?  
  
"Come... come in..."  
  
It was incredibly odd, to say the least. Elizabeth unchained the door and let him in, and he sat on the edge of the bed, she on the stool at the dressing-table. Will stared at her, and it was very dark, for the lantern had burnt out.  
  
"Let me... light the lantern..."  
  
Elizabeth struck up a match and lit it, and the light mixed with the blocks of moonlight falling across the table and the floor. She could see Will clearly now, his eyes deep brown like always - well, of course like always - and still with that look of innocence about him, though there was much, much more to him, as always.  
  
"I wanted to see - if you were all right..." he said. She opened her mouth to say something - what was it? - but he raised a hand and proceeded: "I know that I made a promise." He had that same look as the night when he slammed the medallion down on the table, with pirate's blood running through his veins, with the moonlight bright outside on the sea.  
  
"Where are they?" asked Elizabeth. "... The Navy, I mean. Norrington..."  
  
Will took a deep breath. "Norrington did not come," he said. "At the last minute..."  
  
Elizabeth cut him off: "I understand." She smiled a little. "He understood. I mean."  
  
The two sat staring at each other for a while. They had been so intimate all of their lives that it was not uncomfortable to stare at each other - even after... well.  
  
Elizabeth no longer felt the need to explain herself. So she didn't. But her heart was reaching out to Will... to love someone without that person's love - did he think? - how could she dispel the illusions for someone else?  
  
"Will," she said. He looked at her, in the lantern-light, and she looked at him, in the moonlight. "This night has been the best night of my life and all I've done is stared at..." She laughed a little. "...Stared at my reflection and thrown open the shutters and let out the wildest yell I could into the night."  
  
Will smiled. He was like that sometimes. He had always understood her when she was a little girl - it was just when she got older that he had seemed not to understand, sometimes. Truth be told, the two of them probably understood each other perfectly. They would indeed have been a perfect match if there had not been the missing part when she kissed him.  
  
There was a long silence between the two. And then Will said, "Where will you go? - From here, I mean. Are..."  
  
Elizabeth smiled at him, but the tears were brimming already. Such a free woman had no right to cry. But these things cannot be done - these immortal, profound things - in one moment. They start off with a glorious moment, but they must come as they will. Slowly, through trials.  
  
"Honestly? I do not know." She stood up and went to the window. "I have no idea." She turned back to Will. "Well, I have an idea. I..."  
  
But then she remembered the rumor. Curses, curses, curses! It ruined everything... Surely Jack had just invented a rumor about himself to keep the Navy away, or else to bait Norrington, for a little bit of fun, another round. But what if the case were otherwise? She had no way of telling.  
  
"Will," she said, sitting back down. "Have you heard anything from... I mean, about - Jack?"  
  
Will looked pained for a moment - oh.  
  
"No, Will -"  
  
"Do you really - love him?"  
  
Elizabeth glanced at the mirror, which reflected Will.  
  
"I really don't know any more," she said.  
  
Neither did Will.  
  
A moment later, he said: "I haven't heard anything."  
  
No, he hadn't.  
  
Suddenly she felt a rush of gratitude sweep over her. Will was here. She had been alone, and gone through the most profound change of her life, and now Will was here. She did not love him, but he was Will.  
  
"Thank you," she said. Deep breath. "For coming." She smiled.  
  
Will nodded. As if it were his duty, or something. He was glad to have a bigger duty than that of pounding steel. He looked at Elizabeth, into her eyes. He loved her. He always had...  
  
He breathed deeply. The air was still around, and it smelled intensely like the sea, which was in his blood, whether he liked it or fully accepted it or not. He liked that feather that he had worn in his hat. And the blood of a pirate ran through his veins, and of that he was proud... A very odd pride it was, but it was there anyway.  
  
It was all right. In this room in Tortuga with the shutters wide open and the moonlight pouring in and the flame in the lamp lit by Elizabeth, who was keen at striking matches, because of that peculiar fire of hers. Yes, somehow, it would be all right.  
  
It was all that the both of them needed.  
  
A sloppy embrace; it lasted a bit longer than it should have, because Will did, after all, love her, and he wanted her to be safe, but he loved her quite truly, and this led him to accept her whether or not she was absolutely safe.  
  
"Thank you," said Elizabeth.  
  
Will closed the door behind him and stood in the hallway a moment. He would see her after this, he was sure. He did not believe much in endings any more. He breathed deeply, however foul or stuffy the air was in that hallway in an inn in Tortuga, and walked away. Somehow, the Dauntless was gone the next afternoon. Had it ever been there, or had Elizabeth dreamed?  
  
But one thing was certain. Elizabeth would not be the maiden standing at the pier until the salt and brine consumed her. No, that would not be her fate.  
  
-  
  
There was a storm brewing out at sea.  
  
Jack liked the sea-spray better than the rum, and the compass sometimes whirled, or perhaps it was only himself. And the storms were alive indeed, and the deck was salty with sea. 


	7. A Fine Mist

Flights of Fancy 

by Laura, aka, Illoria

**Author's Note: **Hi guys. Thanks so much to everyone who has reviewed thus far and everyone who will review (nudge nudge) :P. :) The formatting messed up when I first uploaded the _last _chapter so there were no dividers between different sections, I'm sorry about that, and anyone who had to deal with the confusing-ness. It was fixed. :)

**Chapter Seven: A Fine Mist**

They stood out on deck, the Dauntless in a sea mist. A would-be sacred night, it seemed, curses warped in the vision-smearing fog, so that a glimmer of gold might be seen reflected in the sweetly undulating sea as a star to be wished upon.

Elizabeth had long wished upon the pirate medallion that she wore around her neck. How could she have known that all along she had been wishing upon curses?

"_Peas in a pod, love."_

-----

Elizabeth awoke in a shiver and cold sweat. Often she dreamed of her past... so often, in fact, that she sometimes wondered if the events of her past had really happened as she remembered them, or if they had been put through dream-filters, and so, to her, seemed different than they had really been.

Sometimes it got so intense, her not being able to tell if her memories were actual memories or dreams, that she wanted so much to talk to someone who had been there too, who had seen the same things that she had seen. But even so, this other person would not give the same narrative that Elizabeth would, because he would have seen things differently, through a different filter. Norrington saw things through a filter of reason most times, probably as intensely as Elizabeth saw things through a filter of dreams. Will saw things as he wanted to see them and not otherwise, and he refused to fully see things that went against his desires. Perhaps Jack Sparrow was the only one who really saw things exactly as they were, no more, no less, and deeply and fully, from a crow's-nest perspective.

But nobody knows for sure what anybody else sees.

All Elizabeth knew was what she saw, and what she had seen, and what she imagined she had seen. They all made up a delicious sparkling weave that she carried around inside of her.

-----

"Miss."

She turned around to face a merchant-looking man, with frills on the ends of his sleeves, a calico vest, and a small yet ornate hat. He had his hands folded in front of him and was smiling at her from beneath the shadow of his hat's feather.

"...Yes?" she said.

He unfolded his hands, only to clench them together again as he began speaking. "Now, hear me out, if you will, miss. I have a proposition to make you."

"I'm not interested," said Elizabeth.

The man opened his coat. Bags were tied to loose strings, supposedly containing coins or nuggets, and they clanked and clattered as he whisked about in front of Elizabeth.

"Short on money, miss?"  
  
He was talking about her dirtied dress.

"No, sir." She tried to keep walking.

"No, listen to my proposition," the man said, blocking her way with a jangle.

"Please."

He leaned in close to her face. She could smell his sweat.

"A pretty girl like you could turn out with... quite a sum," he said. "What else are you going to do? Alone in Tortuga, are you? No contacts, no ties? You have nowhere to go and nothing to do to sustain yourself. What is a lonely lass like you to do?"

She again tried to ignore him and keep walking. He reached out his hand and held her back.

"Listen..." he said. "I would take great pleasure in being your first client." 

His lips were wet.

Elizabeth ran. She would never know if the man had chased after her or not, for she didn't look back. She did not return to the inn right away, but went into shops, walked through the market, and then when she glanced around and did not see the man, she went back.

-----

Tomorrow would be her last day with a place to stay. The money she had given the innkeeper would only buy her so long a stay, and now it was running out.

She stared into the mirror and cried.

------

Freedom wasn't worth anything if she'd be turned out onto the nighttime streets of Tortuga, swept under the always-rioting crowd, in the place where they burned. Everything smelled like a cloud of rum. Elizabeth loved to keep her windows shut, forbidding their devil's festival to come anywhere near her.

But she couldn't forbid them to touch her if she were out in the middle of the festival herself. No one was immune on Tortuga.

------

_I have to get out of here..._

Elizabeth missed Will. Why hadn't she gone with him when he had come for her?

Oh yes. She still didn't even know if that had been a dream or not. It had felt like a dream, but then again, how many other things in her life lately had also felt like a dream? Too many to count.

Elizabeth missed Jack. Surely he would take her away.

She cried with the lady in the mirror. All she had ever wanted was all that had always and still escaped her. She took herself away from Port Royal, but now all she wanted was to be taken away from Tortuga.

_Where next, then? You've run out of plans..._

Nowhere. Everywhere. On the open sea, on the deck, at midnight, with the glowing moon reminding her of the ghost ship Pearl, with no one to hurt her –

She longed for it so much that she ached.

But what then? "With no one to hurt her" – on a pirate ship? But Jack would protect her. She cried and cried.

She could not live her whole life with someone to protect her. But right now, she was not. She had no one to protect her in Tortuga.

Then was this some sort of challenge?

No.

------

Knocks on the door. Will?

"Miss," said the innkeeper.

Elizabeth opened the door. It was morning.

"Miss, your stay is up."

-----

New morning, beautiful sky, clear fresh air.

It was remarkable how the morning started clearing away the night-riots of Tortuga. Throughout the day, there was scarcely a trace of them. The rioters were at inns, in apartments, asleep and hung-over. Or they were in alleys, but who in their right mind went in those? During the day, Tortuga was a bustling port town. 

At least, so it appeared. But everyone has always known that Tortuga is not merely a bustling port town. If one wanted one of those, he would make for Port Royal. If one mischievous trickster wanted a safe haven, he would make for Tortuga.

But where would lonely lasses go? says the man with the clank-clattering coins.

------

Where was he going? To the North Star. To the pale blooms blossoming some frozen spring in a strange land far away. Nothing specific. Thoughts and notions whirled in colors bright and pale, but symphonic. In their own clank-clattering way.

He tasted something colder.

-------

Elizabeth slept at the docks. Under the dock where it met the shore, hoping that she wouldn't roll over into the water. She didn't.

She hit her head on the wood when she woke up. No footsteps above her yet; it was dawn. She scuttled out with as much dignity as she could find onto the beach, and stood there, watching the beautiful sliver of a moon disappear as the sun rose ever higher and the sea lapped moonshine and sunlight.

Strange hour of merging. She praised it then.

------

The Pearl docked in Tortuga, to replenish the supplies for the next voyage to Somewhere. Elizabeth was in town when Jack gave mishmash orders on deck for the crew to get this and this, that, that, whatever else seemed providential when it caught their eyes.

Elizabeth's heartbeat was punctual. She could feel every breath, and every bead of sweat given her by the Caribbean heat. Her senses were not elevated because she sensed something; rather, she was afraid of sensing something.

The Black Pearl's crew went into town before dusk. Elizabeth was very hungry, and had no money. And would not steal, even though she had come here dreaming of running away with pirates.

She avoided the market and went to the sea, because the sea seemed to calm her, and she needed all calm or else she would panic, for she was in a situation that definitely did merit panic.

She saw the ship and her heart stopped for a second. When it started up again, the world was changed. She stared and stared at the black sails furled.

Hunger was making her hallucinate, granting her this vision, only to rip it away when torture saw fit. Ah, but no. The ship stayed.

This was Tortuga. Anything could happen in Tortuga.

------

Jack's hand was tangled up in Iris's tangled hair. The wench smelled like the sea at her worst, when the fishermen come and go about their kidnapping.

Why did he do this? Tonight was not the night. 'Twasn't a full-moon night; only a little, beautiful sliver was up in the sky. What did it matter if it was a full-moon night or not? Jack didn't know. The heat that spotted his eyes at noon told him of mishmash notions, that something was here.

------

What would she do? Jack Sparrow was here. It wasn't right. Something wasn't right... Her memory of him seemed twisted. Like she couldn't quite conjure his image correctly. He escaped her.

She felt terribly dirty. But she was mostly safe here, unless some stragglers came out. Mostly everyone was in town; she heard small relics of gunfire and smelled the fires they burned, imagined once that she tasted the rum, and then couldn't get the taste out of her mouth.

Jack would come back. He had, already. Now he would saunter past without even looking, she was so confused.

Now that Jack was here, she wanted Will. He felt cleaner.

Oh, why did she play such games with her heart?

------

Summer always feels the same. It feels in a blast of color, juicy. It feels like being soaked in sunshine.

The crickets, as Elizabeth walked along the shore past the brushing reeds of tall sea-grass, were playing out both the beginning and the final chords of this summer, and their music reached up to the stars.

"_I can't take it."_

Elizabeth's mind was reeling. She hated this feeling, the one that she got, every-so-often. She had it right before the Pearl came. Fanning herself at Norrington's ceremony. She had been better at hiding it then.

That time she had fallen out of one fear and into another. Where was she falling this time?


End file.
